God’s Mission: Our Mission.
Acts 2: 1 – 21; John 16: 12 – 15
Who are what is driving you? Where’re you going?
Wow! What a mind-blowing moment! There they were together thinking about their Lord and it happened as Jesus said it would! The Spirit came upon them. They were taken up in an ecstatic babble of voices. It was quite a disturbance. People heard them. A crowd gathered and grew. Here were a group of men and women babbling away like drunkards, yet the crowd recognised different languages being spoken. It was Pentecost and many of the Jewish and proselyte pilgrims from the corners of the Empire were still in Jerusalem. It must have been an amazing spectacle. It was followed by Peter’s sermon explaining what was happening. This event marks the birth of the Church. The Spirit came in power and dramatically changed things. Jesus told them to wait for the Spirit to baptise them and then they would be witnesses [Acts 1: 4,8]. The disciples had done three things: they obeyed the command to wait; they waited prayerfully and expectantly; and, they waited together. These were purpose driven followers of Jesus.
What purpose drives you? What mission do you have in life? What expectation do you have of God? Why are you a Christian? Why are you here today? [Take some time to elicit this info.]
A purpose driven community is a community with a mission? A mission drives us.
So let’s go back to the basics.
Firstly, what is a mission statement? A mission statement is a formal summary of the aims and values of a company, organisation or individual to which all subscribe. In a nutshell a mission statement proclaims why we exist. A mission statement focuses on who we are, and a vision statement on where we want to be. A mission statement has more to do with where we are and what we are doing. The vision statement has more to be with where we want to be in the future. So we have this Vision statement drawn up by the VicTas Synod.
The Vision
Following Christ (Jesus), walking together
as First and Second Peoples,
seeking community, compassion and justice for all creation.
I think it is a mix mission and vision. I understand ‘following Christ’ Jesus is something we do now and so with the ‘walking’ and ‘seeking’. The statement is certainly something we want to do and should be doing now.
Secondly, from where do we get our mission statement for the Church? Who gives it to us? Is it something we decide?
I want to suggest the mission statements are usually given to us from leadership of the company. They certainly might consult with the employees but the owners really decide what the mission is. The employees merely work out the strategies to accomplish the mission.
We need to be clear about what we are doing. The Synod’s document, Introducing the Vision and Mission Principles [IVMP], state that “it is God’s mission of love for the world in Jesus Christ”, which “draws us into a continuing work in fellowship with the Spirit”. [IVMP, p.5] The mission of God is precisely that, God’s Mission, not ours. In accepting Christ Jesus as our lord and Saviour we take on God’s mission, which John’s account of the Gospel expresses very well. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life [Jn 3:16].
There are three key Scripture texts that sum up the Mission of God in Christ Jesus. Jesus says quoting the prophet Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” [Luke 4: 18-19]
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” [Mt 28: 19]
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. [2 Cor 5: 18,19]
So Jesus sees his mission as releasing us from the powers that oppress and bind us. We in turn are to witness to Christ Jesus and the Kingdom and introduce people to Christ Jesus and Kingdom living. It is a life of love in God and reconciliation in practice. Our mission is to lead people to the life Jesus offers the world, and show them in word and deed what it is.
It is a work we can only accomplish through fellowship with the Holy Spirit. As Jesus said to Nicodemus, to be born again involves the work of the Spirit, as did Creation and as does our continuing growth and service to God’s world require the presence of the Spirit. The Spirit is essential to serving and fulfilling God’s mission of love to the world.
Pause with me and let me offer you a three-fold mission task that is quite within the capabilities of everyone present. My experience tells me that when we think of ‘mission’ people think of something new that they aren’t doing. They then start talking about their members are too old to do anything. There are two problems with this line of thinking. Firstly it does not recognise the mission that is being done in the present and secondly, it doesn’t recognise that the mission we are already doing can be done right up until our funeral service. Synod and Presbytery staff and leaders through their ‘talk’ commit the same error. We think it is something new and it looks like a programme we run.
Instead the first act of mission is Worship. It is the Christian’s duty and service to praise God. The Westminster Catechism states that in its first principle.
Q. 1. What is the chief and highest end of man (humankind)?
A. Man’s (Humankind’s) chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.
Failure to see worship not only as service but mission is to miss the point of worship. To worship is to show worth to God. That’s our duty. That’s our privileged to praise and thank the One who created all things and gave us life. That’s our joy to thank the One who has blessed us. A community of believers, who truly gather to worship, praise and give thanks and become positive people, will show worth to others and convey thankfulness. They will become so filled with joy in God that they will thank God in all situations [1 Thess 5:18]. The joyful positive Christian automatically makes a difference. A person grounded in praise is a positive thankful person. A person grounded in praise blesses rather than judges or criticises. Our duty to praise God our Creator is in fact the source of our joy. What is duty becomes our blessing and thus a blessing to others [Gen 12: 3]
Witness is our mission. Note though that our worship has already prepared us for mission. We are joy-filled people. Joy-filled people are always good to be with. People are inquisitive. They will want to know why we are so positive. At least they will observe us. We are called to be disciples – followers of Jesus – to whom Jesus has given the task of ‘making disciples’ [Mt 28:19]. Mark tells us that Jesus commanded them to go and proclaim the Good News [Mk 16:15], and Luke has Jesus telling them to be witnesses [Acts 1:8]. The fact of the matter is that in following Jesus and receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit they were compelled to speak of Christ Jesus because Christ Jesus was everything to them. They could not but witness to God’s love, they had experience through their deeds and words of love. Our witness arises out of our worship – our praise and thanksgiving to God for God’s love and mercy shown to us.
A little honesty please! Don’t we tend to see Christianity differently? Don’t we see worship as a duty and we find more meaning in the fellowship? Sunday-by-Sunday what is the greater blessing – the worship, the preaching that inspires or the fellowship with your church friends? And what about inside of us? What’s going on there? I sense we want to go to a church where we get something. And we will stay at a church if we are part of the fellowship. There is something else. We go consciously or consciously to church to receive. The outcome is going to be radically different for the person who gathers to worship to get as opposed the person who gathers with other worshippers to give. Where are we on the spectrum of worshipping to get or to give? There is a need to re-frame the way we see ourselves at worship.
There is also another matter about how our worship is led. Worship can be led in a formal way that is dry and demanding, or in a light hearted manner that robs us of the awesome moment of worship. Are our worship leaders helping us approach and enjoy God, or are they following convention and order?
Well-being is part of the mission beginning with us. Love your neighbour as you love yourself, Jesus said [Mk 12:29]. It is a truism if you don’t like yourself you will find it hard to like others. Likewise if you don’t seek justice for yourself you will be reluctant to seek it for others. More positively someone who appreciates well-being will want it for others, because our well-being is dependent to a large extent on the well-being of others.
I have chosen to label this loving of self and our neighbour as ‘well-being’ because for me it captures a sense of holistic wellness of body, mind and spirit, and personal and political (community) wellness.
The act of loving our neighbour is fundamental to the mission of God in Christ Jesus. The desire for the well-being of others arises out of worship and is ensured by our witness.
So the local Church’s mission is to Worship, Witness and live out Well-being. All else flows from the basics of mission.
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Peter C Whitaker, Leighmoor UC: 20/05/2018
/ www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org